GEH 1010 Group Presentation Analysis

As the GEH 1010 group presentation dealt with multiple themes of sustainability and social justice, the presentation was divided to answer to two key questions. One group focused on “Is the way we feed on animals leading to a sustainable world?” and the other is “Should social justice include justice for nonhumans?” Personally, our group addresses the second question on social justice for nonhumans.
As a general format to address the issue of social justice, the presentation was broken down into a pseudo-debate. Presenting both perspective, for and against nonhuman justice which allowed to cover all ideas revolving around nonhuman justice and conclude on our final answer that nonhumans deserve social justice. Focusing on why animals should

Extrapolating the reasoning of why people do not see nonhumans as equal came to the idea of speciesism. The opposition’s reasoning was broken into religion, emotions, intelligences, and conservation movements. For religion, focusing on Christianity, the treatment of nonhumans are justified as they are gifts from god. Thus, they are meant to serve humans. This idea came from Anderson’s reading on zoos. Discussing emotions of nonhumans, I made the case that animals rely on primal instinct, living to survive; however, they lack the cognitive understanding of concept greater than that such as life and death. But, humans have been able to self-actualize the greater concepts of life such as death, legacy, and achievement. Extending the argument to Maslow’s pyramid of need, nonhumans are limited to the bottom portion of the pyramid. Nonhumans’ needs are limited to basic needs such as safety and physiological needs. However, humans have the capacity to transcend this basic need barrier to fulfill psychological and self-fulfillment needs. This distinguish the higher level of emotional ability which humans have over nonhumans. During lecture, a video of a chimpanzee experiment where the animal had to

However, while one may argue the experiment to distinguish the intelligence of animals, it can be construed that animals only adapt to their environment. The chimpanzee merely reacts to the environment constructed for him in order to fulfill a primal need (as the reward system is food). Humans have transcended this limitation of their environment. Humans are not restricted by their environment and moved past primal needs with the creation of civilization, technology, and medicine. Lastly, conservation can act as a form of speciesism. In Shahabuddin & Bhamidipati’s reading, India’s conservation has displaced over 100,000 people from their homes, culture, and livelihoods. While an act of conservation for wildlife, it sets a precedent that the equality between humans and nonhumans can never be certainly equal. With the arguments against justice for nonhumans created, we focused on countering these arguments to bolster the answer that nonhumans deserve social justice. Thus, certain arguments needed to be disputed to come to our final conclusion. For religion, as gifts of God, humans should not disrespect these gifts and show proper